at our gate, to the fact that the battle had been postponed.



THE FINDING OF THE
PRINCESS.

It was the day I was promoted to a tooth-brush. The girls,
irrespective of age, had been thus distinguished some time
before; why, we boys could never rightly understand, except that
it was part and parcel of a system of studied favouritism on
behalf of creatures both physically inferior and (as was shown by
a fondness for tale-bearing) of weaker mental fibre. It was not
that we yearned after these strange instruments in themselves;
Edward, indeed, applied his to the scrubbing-out of his
squirrel's cage, and for personal use, when a superior eye was
grim on him, borrowed Harold's or mine, indifferently; but the
nimbus of distinction that clung to them--that we coveted
exceedingly. What more, indeed, was there to ascend to, before
the remote, but still possible, razor and strop?

Perhaps the exaltation had mounted to my head; or nature and the
perfect morning joined to him at disaffection; anyhow, having
breakfasted, and triumphantly repeated the collect I had broken
down in the last Sunday--'twas one without rhythm or
alliteration: a most objectionable collect--having achieved thus
much, the small natural man in me rebelled, and I vowed, as I
straddled and spat about the stable-yard in feeble imitation of
the coachman, that lessons might go to the Inventor of them. It
was only geography that morning, any way: and the practical thing